tapestry-users mailing list archives

I've spent some time analyzing my concerns/requirements and Tapestry's
abilities. This is what I've come up with (please correct if I'm
wrong):
1. Components must be defined prior to render. Which means, you need
to have the "disabled" attribute/binding set to false on *every*
single component you want to protect, at build-time. It is a pain to
add a "binding" at run-time and highly discouraged.
(http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.java.tapestry.user/25209).
2. Tapestry is incapable of removing components at render time. You
don't have access to the DOM, you can't set a flag, I have not found
anything to enable this. I should clarify, this is the case for all
default Tapestry components OR you can sort of work around this by
wrapping the component in a Conditional component.
3. Tapestry default components do not allow render flags. In
conjunction with issue #2, you can't just set a flag informing
Tapestry to NOT render the component.
So, why does this pose a large issue for me? Because I have many pages
in which I now need to implement security by either
removing/not-rendering the component or adding/modifying the
"disabled" attribute. I cannot, out-of-the-box, do what I need with
Tapestry 3.1. I must go through each component and the add a
"disabled" attribute (only 130+ of them). I must choose to wrap the
components in Conditionals if I don't want them rendered. IMO, this is
a ton of work and really defeats the purpose of dynamic page
generation and server-side page manipulation. Perhaps this is part of
the general Tapestry paradigm, but I don't understand that paradigm
correctly (or not well enough), because this is quite frustrating.
The only acceptable solution (I've thus found) is to go through and
create wrapper components for each of the Tapestry components we're
using. I'll add a default "disabled" attribute that I can hose with at
run-time (so the designer doesn't have to add it specifically) and a
flag that determines whether the component should render. This is
going to take more time than I likely have and is a real pain since
I'll need to essentially wrap all of the basic Tapestry components
(ProperSelection, Insert, DirectLink, PageLink, Submit, Button).
On the other hand, JSF provides the convenience of both the ability to
update attributes (mutable map, getAttributes()) and set a render flag
(setRender()). What's prohibiting Tapestry's inclusion of the same
principles? Has no one else been disturbed because of these inherent
weaknesses?
Feedback and correction is appreciated.
On 9/2/05, Robert Zeigler <robertz@scazdl.org> wrote:
> I'll try to find the thread information.
> What concerns me about the original poster's idea is the thought of
> "removing" the component. Rendering or not rendering the component is
> fine; that's "dynamic behavior". Adding or removing components at
> runtime violates the idea of "static structure".
>
> The thread subject was "programmatically adding a binding to a component".
> Gmane:
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.java.tapestry.user/25209
>
> The thread was talking specifically about component bindings, but the
> specific quote I was thinking of was:
>
> "The various setter methods exist for the framework, you
> should treat components as immutable."
>
> This includes adding and removing components to the component at
> runtime. Note that pages are just specialized components.
>
> Again, the fundamental issue is not rendering vs. not rendering
> components, but rather adding/removing the components. It sounded to me
> like the original poster was wanting to do the latter.
>
> The "requires role" component that you implemented sounds fine; this is
> the sort of approach I was advocating.
>
> Robert
>
> LOCHART,DOUGLAS E wrote:
> > Robert,
> >
> > I am interested in reading this HLS thread. I did a search but did not
> > find it. Could you possibly point me to the thread (dates, keywords to
> > search etc)
> >
> > I would appreciate it.
> >
> > The approach I took was to create a component (based on the Conditional
> > component) called RequiresRole. If the user logged in does not have the
> > role, the menu option/links etc are not visible. It works fine for me.
> > Maybe I am missing the point in "rendering of pages at runtime" but my
> > component is JUST LIKE Conditional so I do see what is the problem.
> >
> > thanks
> >
> > Doug
> >
> >
> > To be honest, personally, I don't think that approach is really going to
> > mix well with tapestry. As was mentioned by HLS in a recent thread, you
> > should consider pages at runtime as immutable. Removing elements will
> > prove problematic, I think.
> > An approach I used was to create a sort of "inRole" component. It takes
> > as parameters either a requisite permission name or an object for which
> > permission is required. It's essentially an "if" wrapper, but has the
> > advantage of centralizing the render-oriented permission logic to a single
> > component.
> > You could also create custom wrappers around any components. So you
> > could, for instance, create a "SecureTable" component which wraps a table
> > component, adds parameters related to permission checking, and
> > conditionally renders the component. Then you could use your SecureTable
> > just like table, and still have your dynamic behavior.... static
> > structure, dynamic behavior. :)
> >
> > Robert
> >
> >
> >>> I'm wondering if anyone has impemented a security model that requires
> >>> dynamic (render-time) removal of certain HTML elements? And if so, how
> >>> hefty
> >>> was the work? I need to remove elements at render time based upon roles
> >>> and
> >>> rights and *do not* want to wrap all of the secure elements in
> >>> conditionals.
> >>> Rather, I'd wish to determine at render time the necessity of removing
> >>> certain elements and simply not render them.
> >>>
> >>> TIA,
> >>> -RR-
> >>>
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: tapestry-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: tapestry-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: tapestry-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: tapestry-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: tapestry-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: tapestry-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
>
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: tapestry-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: tapestry-user-help@jakarta.apache.org